


ikarus' no good, very bad day

by Blue_bird16



Category: The Bastards Crew
Genre: Apollon (mentioned), Attempted Murder, Daidalos Peripléko (implied), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Minos (mentioned), Murderous Ideology, Perdix Peripléko (mentioned), Violence, a little bit of body horror?, listen i love my friends' ocs So Much but sometimes my oc just has to do a murder, misuse of sailing terms probably, you know how it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 06:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_bird16/pseuds/Blue_bird16
Summary: Ikarus makes a pit stop to pick up a crate. Everything goes downhill from there.





	ikarus' no good, very bad day

**Author's Note:**

> /so many of these characters arent mine lkajsdhfkasd/ it their name isnt the Partridge or their last name isnt Peripléko they don't belong to me but rather my wonderful wonderful friends who said i could use them. I just....love them all.........so much...

Ikarus watched the fuel gage drop lower and lower, annoyed at his own curiosity. If he hadn’t gone off-route to spend three hours picking up a  _ fucking metal crate _ floating in the Middle Of Nowhere Space with a broken external arm and no functioning space suits and dealing with the concept of  _ inertia _ fighting against him, he’d still have the fuel to make it to the nearest fuel station. 

He sighed, then used most of the last of it to blast the "brakes", slowing the  _ Partridge _ to a near-standstill while leaving enough to keep the life support systems running. Letting her roar through the stars with no fuel for maneuvering power was  _ unwise _ at best, and at this speed he might drift into the nearest fueling station in...two months. If Old King Cole’s war hadn’t destroyed it already. 

He settled back in the pilot’s chair, content to watch the slow-passing stars for now. 

~

Ikarus was fucking bored. He didn’t need to eat much these days, but just for the hell of it, on the fourth day he decided to test how many freeze-dried rations he could fit in his mouth and still be able to chew them up enough to swallow (answer: Too Many), and that stomachache had entertained him well enough for two days. 

But that was a week ago. The fueling station wouldn’t even be in sight for another month and a half at least, and he had nothing. To.  _ Do. _

Briefly he thought about sending out the distress signal, but in this part of space he was more likely to be robbed and lose his ship to scrappers than get a friendly tow. He hated this stagnation. He hated the feeling of being trapped in the very ship that had saved his life, in the ship that had given him his freedom but now was  _ nothing more than a fancy tin can floating towards an uncertain destination _ . 

Snarling slightly at the fucking  _ futility _ of it all, Ikarus settled back in the pilot’s chair again, and waited.

~

And waited.

~

“ _ FUCK!!! _ ” he screamed out five days later, his first word in who knows how long, just for something to  _ change _ , and immediately began hacking up oil and bolts for the next few hours. 

He waited.

~

Ikarus broke three days later and finally took the sleeping pills that had been in the first aid kit ever since he first came on board. The nightmares were the same, but the waiting made the waking  _ worse _ , somehow. The pills were labeled extra-strength, but their expiration date was...Ikarus didn’t actually know what the date was, but he figured he was well past that now.

He wasn’t. The amount of pills he took knocked him out for the next ten days. 

~

Being groggy made the next two days pass in a haze, but when he was finally fully aware of his situation again, he almost wished he wasn’t. The  _ Partridge _ was just moving  _ so.  _ **_Slowly_ ** . The stars weren’t even enough to hold his attention for too long at this speed, not when staring at the spaces between felt too much like falling  _ likeburninglikebeinginthechokingdarkoncemore like  _ and Ikarus had had  _ enough _ of falling. 

It was at this point that he remembered the metal crate that derailed his entire route in the first place. Scanning the stars once more to check for signs of...anything and finding nothing, Ikarus left the cockpit to head down to the small loading bay of the  _ Partridge _ . 

He studied the crate. It didn’t look much different from when he picked it up. Bulky rounded corners, a glowing lock, a dull silver color, the usual. His resting bitch face deepened into a thoughtful frown. Why did he feel the need to pick up  _ this _ particular crate? Old King Cole’s war left tons of space trash floating around, and Ikarus left most of it alone  _ liaryoujustliketolook atwhateverbrokenthingcrossesyourpathmaybeyoucanfixitlikeyoucan’tfixyourself _ , so why this crate? 

He prodded at the glowing lock. It beeped angrily at him and flashed red before resetting to its neutral blue. Fingerprint scanner, maybe? Biometrics? Honestly, the sheer variety of locks that had sprung up in response to **_nodon’tthinkaboutityoudon’tgettothinkaboutthataboutthemabouthim_** made a guessing game impossible to win. Ikarus huffed in annoyance, then headed to his berth to grab Better Tools than the ones he kept on hand in the bay. 

It was on his way back down to the loading bay that something  _ yanked _ at the  _ Patridge _ , sending Ikarus tumbling headlong down the ladder and halfway down the hall, metal clashing against metal as his sore wing sockets bashed into the floor. 

‘The fuckin  _ fuck?! _ ’ Ikarus thought, abandoning his bag as he raced back up to the cockpit, ignoring the pain radiating from several points on his body (most notably his toe. Shoes were for assholes but sometimes he can quietly admit their supposed usefulness).  

Breathing harshly, oil sludging down his chin, Ikarus stared in horror out of the various windows. The stars...they were  _ gone _ .

‘No,  _ not _ gone,’ he thought harshly. He either crashed into something  _ unlikelythehullwould’vecrumpledevenatthevelocitywe’regoingandyou’dbestrugglingtobreatheforawholedifferentreason _ or something had...pulled a sack over the ship’s windows? He glanced at the sensors, dread competing with the oil to choke him. They were completely blank, meaning the  _ Partridge _ had somehow gone inside a singularity without Ikarus noticing, or…

Or the whole ship was being covered by something. And since that never happened naturally in space  _ never _ **_never_ ** _ youidiotdidn’tyoulearnanythinginallthistime _ then…

Then someone was trying to board the  _ Partridge _ . 

~

“--fucking  _ telling _ you, Dani, there’s nobody here! I don’t care what  _ Cass _ said, maybe you misunderstood her. Yes, fine, send Bishop and Fara over, we need to start scrapping before  _ Cass _ gets too hungry to hold us. Over and out.” Ikarus held his breath, watching the brunette with drawn-on eyebrows and a fire-blush across their nose (wearing a _bustle_ of all things) walk out of his berth.

‘Pirate ship,’ he thinks wryly, thankfully, as he slides farther back into the slightly-larger-than-normal vent in the wall of his berth. ‘Bastards filled it with nooks and crannies for something like this.’ 

Silently, he followed the stranger through his ship via the vents as they continued talking loudly. 

“There isn’t even an AI on board! I’ve seen escape pods better equipped than this hunk of junk! Look at those fucking intercoms! They’re  _ practically last century! _ Did anyone even see any gunports before  _ Cass _ swallowed this thing? I don’t care about any damned biosigns or whatever Hector was spouting, the only thing this scrap is good for is  _ Cassandra’s _ next meal,” the figure continued being loud all the way back to the loading bay. 

Ikarus wiped some oil off his chin before it could drip down and sizzle against the metal grating.

The loud figure reached a baby-faced white-haired person with too many buckles on their clothes to be practical, who was standing over the  _ godsdamned metal crate that Ikarus spent three hours fishing out of the black, that was  _ **_his,_ ** _ dammit! _

“Shut the fuck up, Tarsa, there’s something weird about this crate,” they said. 

“There’s  _ something weird _ on every ship you board, Wren, give it a rest. Not everything exists for the  _ ‘mystique,’ _ ” the other one, Tarsa, replied, air quoting mystique. Ikarus couldn’t help it, quirked a grin despite himself and the rising roiling anger simmering in his chest. 

“Listen,  _ asshole _ , Hector said that there were biosigns on this ship, but then when we actually board the ship, there’s nothing? Even you can’t say that isn’t weird,” they, Wren, said. Tarsa shrugged.

“Hector’s been wrong before.  _ Cass  _ has been wrong before, too. Doesn’t mean much to me as long as we get a good haul out of it, but so far it’s looking like shit on that front,” Tarsa said. Wren ignored them, continuing to wave some sort of device over the crate. Ikarus’ fingers itched to hold that device, to take it apart and _ know _ it the way he only ever knows about gears and wires, to put it back together again and Make it better. 

‘Focus, Ikarus. You’ve heard seven names, but there could be more. Gather them all in one spot and  _ gut them _ ,’ he thought to himself. ‘Then refuel and get the fuck out of here,’ he added after a beat. 

“I will admit one thing being weird,  _ diplomat _ ,” Tarsa spoke up, the word rolling off their tongue with an easy irony: “Where are the bodies? The escape pod doors haven’t been opened in who fucking knows how long, there’s no structural damage to the hull that would suggest a boarding. Despite being old as balls and boring as shit, the ship’s in perfect condition. Give her a bit of fuel and she'll fly. So where are the bodies?” Tarsa repeated, seeming to be talking more to themselves than their partner, but also not caring if Wren was listening or not. 

“You forgot about the other thing,” Wren said. Tarsa startled at being actually spoken to, trying to cover it by overdramatically examining one of the many guns on their person. 

“Oh, I did, did I? Please, share with the class, Wren,” Tarsa asked sarcastically, gesturing to the rest of the room. Ikarus couldn’t help himself, leaned forward to...what? Hear better?  _ Whatthefuckareyoudoingyou’regoingtogetcaughtyoufuckingnitwit- _

“If the ship’s in perfect condition, then what the hell is up with all the fucking oil everywhere?” Wren asked? ‘ _ Shit, _ ’ Ikarus thought viciously. Panic kicked in, and he was certain these two strangers had him figured out. Maybe even Minos  **_NONONONODON’TTHINKABOUTHIM_ ** had sent them, finally wised up to the actions of his prodigal son  **_NONONONOTHIMDON’TTHINKABOUTDAI_ ** _ \-- _

Before conscious thought had caught up with him, Ikarus was on the move. He briefly heard the one with all the guns yell “What the fuck is that thing!” before he descended on the one standing over his crate, and then all he heard was gunfire and ripping flesh. 

Before long, the white-haired one was practically decapitated and the loud one was missing her lower jaw. Ikarus stood there, breathing hard, staring into the blue glow of the lock on the crate.  _ Movemovemovetheyhadatleasttwootherscomingonyougottahidebeforetheygethere _ \--Ikarus heard movement from behind him. He coughed slightly, the jaw of the loud one falling from his mouth to squelch unpleasantly on the floor. The bullets in his torso were sluggishly being squeezed out, itching terribly, and he watched as the same, slow healing took place on the throat of Wren. 

‘What-’ was all the time he had to think before an enraged gurgle sounded behind him, followed by  _ paindarksharpalonealonealonealonehisnamewasPerdixandyoulefthimtodietofindApollonfindApollonfindApollonyouleftPerdixfindApollonhewasalonelikeyouandDyoulefttofindApollon-- _

He came to with a ringing in his ears and shouting surrounding him. He groaned, shifting a little to cradle his head, and then suddenly all voices were quiet.

“ **_IT SURVIVED A FUCKING HEADSHOT?!_ ** ” someone shouted. Ikarus whimpered, the situation catching up to him again. 

“Whatever it is, it isn’t human. A bot?” a posh-sounding voice asked.

“When the hell have you ever seen a bot  _ bleed _ before, Bishop?” Tarsa demanded. 

“Stand down. It’s probably like us. Wren, do your thing,” a stern voice commanded. 

“ _ Why do I--”  _ Wren whined.

“You’re ship diplomat,” the posh one, Bishop, interrupted gleefully. A sigh. 

“Hey? Can you hear us?” Wren asked Ikarus, voice suddenly much softer than before. Before he could respond, he felt a hand gently lay on his shoulder, sparking panic down his spine.

He snapped his eyes open, snapped at the hand resting on his shoulder, and snapped backwards until his shoulders slammed against  _ the fucking metal crate that started this whole damned mess _ in less than a second. Wren was crouched near where he fell, blood still coating their many-buckled vest and oil splattering their many-buckled boots, hands held up and out placatingly. He noticed the other three  _ wherearetheotherthreenameswhoelseisherearetheygoingtotakethePartrigefromme _ standing in a loosely-grouped semi-circle behind them, staring at him with various weapons slightly drawn. Ikarus, whose  _useless_ harpoon gun was still in the cockpit, could do nothing but bare his teeth at them. 

“Hey, now, no need for that. This is obviously all a big damned misunderstanding,” Wren said, their voice still soft. Ikarus couldn’t focus on them, keeping an eye on the loud one, Tarsa, eyeing over the other two for any sudden movement. “My name’s Wren, we’re the crew of the  _ Cassandra, _ ”  _ Cassandraisashipsixnamesthenwhere’retheotheroneswhoelseishere _ “and we saw your ship drifting. Are you alone here?” Wren asked. Ikarus just kept watching, pressing harder back against the crate. 

“Alright, they asked you a question. What’s the matter, tardigrade got your tongue?” the one with the stern voice asked. They had white hair, too, but longer than Wren’s, one side shaved to reveal...was that a metal plate in their skull?  _ Nonofocusyouneedtofocusandnotlosehimagain _

“Alone,” he rasped out, oil dripping down his chin as he opened his mouth. Wren’s eyes widened, but they only nodded.

“What’s your name?” they asked.

“Ikarus,” he bit out, starting a cough from using his voice so much for the first time since...well, technically, two weeks ago. Wren bit their lip as he continued coughing, trying to keep an eye on them all but struggling to breathe. 

“ _ Fuck _ me, but that sounds painful. The hell’s wrong with you? You know, I’m a doctor, I could take a look if you--” Bishop said, cut off by the stern one slapping their arm across his chest. 

“ _ No _ ,” Ikarus wheezed, finally able to breathe somewhat. He glared at them all, and then settled his eerie light-colored eyes on Wren. “Killed you. Didn’t stick. How?” he grated out. 

“Probably the same reason it didn’t stick on you,” Wren said wryly. Ikarus couldn’t help the snarl that tore out of his chest: “ _ Carmilla. _ ”

“Carmilla,” Wren agreed, nodding. 

“Did the good doctor decide to immortalize half the fucking universe or something?” Tarsa groused, finally fully holstering their gun. Wren ignored them, so Ikarus did, too.

“Well, we can’t kill you, you can’t kill us, so let’s just call it at a truce. You need fuel?” they asked, dropping the soft voice they used earlier. Ikarus kept staring before nodding warily. Wren nodded back once, then stood up. 

“Well, you heard it. Think  _ Cass _ can stand to give up some fuel, captain?” Wren asked, turning to look at the stern one. They jerked their head in affirmation, keeping a steady eye on Ikarus, still on the ground. 

“Not an  _ it _ ,” Ikarus forced out, slowly gathering his legs under him in case he needed to make a run for it. He didn’t like the look in the stern one’s eye, and he didn’t trust the one who called himself _ doctor _ . 

“Sure, kid. Fuel port aft or stern?” Wren asked, already pulling out a communication device identical to the one Tarsa was using earlier. 

“Starboard aft,” he replied, placing a hand on the crate to haul himself up as he ignored the burning in his throat. His voice was sounding less hoarse, he was surprised to find. 

~

“We’re gonna need something in compensation, and I quite like the look of that crate you got down in the bay. Know what’s in it?” the captain, Fara, asked later, when the  _ ferrofluid _ had receded back into wherever it was stored on the other ship and the  _ Partridge _ was supplied with enough fuel to get him safely to the fueling station. He hissed softly in response, clenching his fists.

“ _ That’s mine _ ,” Ikarus said. Fara shrugged.

“It’s either the crate or every dollar you own, and we both know how much you need that money,” they said. Ikarus ground his teeth in frustration, trying to figure out a way to keep both the  _ Partridge _ and the crate. 

The  _ Partridge,  _ of course,  wins every time. 

“Take it,” he spat, cutting his tongue on his teeth in his anger. It healed almost before he tasted the blood. The captain grinned grimly.

“Pleasure doing business. Be seeing you, Ikarus.” 

**Author's Note:**

> the Partridge looks a lot like the Firefly in my mind, but Smaller. hence all the metal grating and ladders and whatnot


End file.
